Luke Plunkett

DVD rental firm Redbox are in talks with a number of publishers over the possibility of adding video games to the company's range of DVD dispensing machines.

Redbox boss Mitch Lowe says that he's holding the talks in an attempt to not only expand the range of products they can offer, but also to try and pre-empt the kind of disputes Redbox currently find themselves in with movie studios.

Studios like Fox, Universal and Warner have withdrawn from Redbox's kiosks in recent months, unhappy with the way the company charges so little for rentals, as they feel it undermines actual DVD sales.

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So Lowe is sounding out the idea with a number of undisclosed publishers, one of which is THQ. "If you look at movies and music in some ways", THQ boss Brian Farrell says, "resisting new business models has not been a great formula for success, so one of the things I like about our industry is we tend to think, 'We have to adapt to this change.' So it's part of our DNA".

To help with the talks, Redbox have already begun trialling "Gamebox" machines in a number of locations in the US, like the one above, sent in by reader Richard. They've been in select markets since the middle of the year. Should these talks go well, though, you can expect them in a lot more markets.